This invention relates generally to medical imaging. More particularly, this invention relates to the acquisition of magnetic resonance signals and reconstruction of images from samples of the acquired signals using a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) system.
Generally, imaging using a MRI system involves imaging a volume of interest in a MRI scanner""s usable volume. The usable volume is defined as a contiguous area inside the patient bore of a Magnetic Resonance scanner and it can be rather limited in size. Typically, when the usable volume fails to cover an extended object, a method for examining the whole volume containing the object employs repeated executions of positioning and imaging a fraction of the whole volume within the scanner""s usable volume. A subsequent assembling operation then assembles or xe2x80x9cstitchesxe2x80x9d the regional images together to produce a final image of the whole volume of interest. Such an approach is typically challenged by the xe2x80x9cstitchingxe2x80x9d artifact issue in which resulting final images often suffer from distinctive artifacts at the boundaries of the xe2x80x9cstitchedxe2x80x9d pieces. Existing techniques achieve correct combination of regional images through full spatial encoding along patient table motion direction. They minimize xe2x80x9cstitchingxe2x80x9d artifacts by using slab selection profiles that are as rectangular as possible, and/or discarding image data near the boundaries. As a result, these techniques tend to be inflexible, require prolonged radio frequency (RF) excitation, and involve considerable acquisition efficiency degradation.
What is needed is an effective and efficient method for producing an image of a volume of interest using a MRI system, particularly with the volume of interest that extends beyond the usable volume of the MRI system. What is further needed is a method for acquiring and reconstructing, in an xe2x80x9cincremental field of viewxe2x80x9d fashion, data sets of a volume of interest using a MRI system that relaxes the requirements of slab selection profile and spatial encoding execution.
A method for producing an image of a volume of interest using a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) system comprising the steps of acquiring a plurality of under-sampled Magnetic Resonance (MR) data sets for a plurality of regions of the volume of interest along an axis of translation within the MRI system and reconstructing the image of the volume of interest using the respective under-sampled MR data sets.